


Oceans Bleed Black

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: One-sided infatuation, but life goes on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:57:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is love, and life goes on without it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oceans Bleed Black

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the glorious [Bob-chan](http://bob-chan.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr, who asked for a post-game story where Corvo ceases to interest the Outsider. Here be sads, but also acceptance, which may or may not make it a little bit better. You decide.

_So it is, with the passing of the plague and Emily's ascension, comes a golden age, brought about by your hand. Farewell, Corvo._

 

In the wake of victory, Corvo's dreams are haunted; black eyes, wet leather, and a young man's wax-pale form. For the longest time they eclipse all else, and the freedom from nightmares (of Campbell's shuffling, bleeding form, of Burrows' pleading as they led him to his execution) is a blessing; he seeks those fabrications of endless blue, and takes solace in his mind's reconstructions. They are, however, only dreams. The Outsider has not approached him since Emily ascended the throne.

 

The Isles are at peace. The plague is cured, and aid has been brought in, gifts of assistance to the new Empress that she puts to good use with the guidance of her councillors. All is quiet, and the wounds are healing.

 

Every morning Corvo wakes a little more hollow; the Void in his mind is a memory only.

 

He has no words for the feeling that drives him to wander Dunwall's rooftops, seeking out abandoned shrines and long-forgotten carved whalebone, but the resulting disappointment is easily recognised. Nobody appears to speak to him, however many runes and charms he unearths. Corvo stumbles back to the Tower, racing the dawn and the changing of the Watch, then spends his days concealing exhaustion and guilt, though what he feels guilty for he isn't quite sure.

 

Emily asks him if he is alright, and he tells her not to worry. The aftermath of Coldridge, the stress of winning her throne back; it will pass, he swears, just like her dreams of her mother's death have begun to pass. She believes him because she is a child, and believes he would not lie to her.

 

Sometimes when they walk the streets of Dunwall (an Empress must know her subjects, Emily insists, and Corvo agrees with weary resignation, because her mother did the same), there are...people. Certain people, young men with short hair, slim frames or too-pale skin, appearing at the corner of his vision. Corvo flinches each and every time, is seconds away from a greeting, ill-concealed relief and, "I thought you'd left me for good; I missed you."

 

It's never him.

 

Still Corvo hopes, for a while at least, and one day-

This, at least, he is ashamed of.

 

One day he agrees to a jovial invitation from Curnow, after an evening spent drinking in quiet companionship, when his boundaries are a little more blurred, and his conscience is a little less restricting. They go to the Golden Cat.

 

There are always women there, and as far as Corvo knew until then there were only women, but Madame Prudence smiles at Curnow and invites him to consider the "new arrivals"; there are no women among them. Corvo hides his shock and would have fled (he has rarely come to places like this, however many assurances Jessamine gave that she would think no less of him for doing so), but there is...a man. Young, pale in a way that speaks of Northern blood, Morley perhaps, with short dark hair and eyes that, in dim light, might almost be mistaken for black.

 

If he finds it odd that Corvo asks for darkness, and for silence, it is not a sentiment he expresses to Corvo himself; he's probably had stranger requests. His skin is clean, soft, and he fucks with long-practiced skill. Corvo bites his own tongue and does not ask him to be clumsier, less mechanical and more exploratory, more _curious_. It was never going to be perfect, anyway. The man's hands are much too warm.

 

Corvo tips him well, and never returns; the Golden Cat will not provide him with the attention he seeks.

 

Instead he searches elsewhere. Dark places, cold places, rotting, rat-infested places; Corvo begins building shrines. The distinctive material is costly, but easily covered by the Lord Protector's salary, and scrap metal and wood is everywhere these days. Whalebone proves more difficult to locate, until Corvo infiltrates the great slaughterhouses on the docks.

 

The first time he sees a still-living whale being carved up like cake at one of Emily's tea parties, Corvo almost slays every butcher in the building. Rational thought arrives at the heels of impulse, however; he did not kill before, and he will not do so now. Butchery is boring, or Daud would not have lost favour. So Corvo sneaks by, soundless and unnoticed, takes bone from the piles of stinking refuse, and leaves the whales to their mournful death-songs.

 

He carves clumsily, at first, but tells himself that he will improve, and perhaps his efforts will then be acknowledged. The days go by, and little things change. A new treaty with Morley, a new trade agreement with Serkonos, and Emily chooses her future Lord Protector, though she only does so after almost a year's incessant prodding from Corvo. Ordinary things, _boring_ things; Dunwall is at peace, the plague rats are dying off, and Piero's brain fevers cured themselves mysteriously one night. He claims not to miss them, but Corvo is sceptical. He knows too well the Void's pull, and the ache of their black-eyed god's absence

 

Corvo is lost, lonely in a way that friendship and family cannot quite fill, and eventually Emily reaches an age where she comprehends the difference, the _lack_ , and tries to fix it.

 

The lady is Serkonan. Liquid dark eyes and a passion for histories; she lines her shelves with musty volumes, and when she touches his arm during absent conversation, it is with the care she reserves for her books. Priceless, irreplaceable, and in this manner she represents her interest.

 

Corvo refuses her, as gently as possible, and leaves no room for compromise in his exit. Still it hurts her, and it hurts Emily more; she comes to find him late in the evening, as she did when she was a child and still afraid of shadows and memories. Now her fears take a different form, of course.

 

"But I like her," she tells him, and Corvo agrees that she is a fine woman, intelligent and certainly not boring.

"Then why did you send her away? How do you _know_ she won't make you happy?"

"It's not as simple as that," Corvo says. Emily is much too old to stamp her foot, but her hands fist themselves on her hips, and she scowls at him like the irritable child her etiquette teachers have not quite silenced.

"It's simple if you'll let it be! You never give _anyone_ a chance, and I've asked and asked and I'm still not allowed to keep you as my Lord Protector forever, so you'll have to stop one day, and then who will take care of you when I can't?"

"I'll take care of myself," Corvo says easily, and Emily's eyes narrow.

"But you don't have to. That's the _point_. You could have someone nice, who cares about you and...and...who will make sure you eat properly, and sleep enough-"

"Candles before a wildfire." Corvo rubs at his temples. The long day has taken its toll on him. More and more these days he feels the tug of exhaustion in newly frustrating ways. "Lakes before the sea...sardines before the great leviathan." He feels a smile tug at his lips, both at Emily's confusion and his own irreverence. For one indulgent moment, Corvo imagines the air cooling, prickling at the hair on his arms with something close to disapproval.

 

The fireside retains its heat, and the air is as it always is. Nobody is listening to hear him tease.

"Never mind," he says instead, but there is a clarity in Emily's eyes that says she has caught his meaning.

"If there's someone already, you could have just _said_."

"It's not as simple as that," Corvo repeats, the old disappointment creeping into his limbs like the warmth from his fireplace. "They're not for me, and I'm not for anyone else."

"Oh, Corvo, I'm sorry." The kindness in Emily's eyes is a mirror to that of her mother. Jessamine always understood the futility of pushing boulders up hill; some battles are best left lost. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. And I don't mind so much, to be honest; this is better."

"How?"

_He would destroy me_ , Corvo doesn't tell her. _He would devour me whole, not knowing what he did, and loving every shred of me until shreds I became. And when I was nothing but blood and bitter shards of bone, he would look at my remains and still not understand that the fault was his own._

He doesn't tell her.

"It just is," he says instead. "Now stop sending noblewomen after me, please. I am not suffering for a lack of companionship."

 

She stops, and Corvo is satisfied in his solitude. He builds his shrines in nooks and sewers and sunken caves, lights his candles and says his prayers, and his carvings grow less clumsy with practice. Alone he will kneel (or stand, as his knees begin to protest with time and the effort of reaching remote locations), and speak to his constructs of wood and metal and purple-blue cloth. Nothing so formal as the strictures; Corvo finds the odd occurrences, the new details, ferrets them out from the monotony of his days and offers them before the Void like sacrifices.

 

There is never a response, but he has come to find he does not mind. The solitude is pleasant, and Corvo uses the time to discuss plans and proposals with blue light and shadows. He looks for words in the unending silences, and tries to view Imperial schemes with eyes that watched the Empire itself rise. Often he leaves with new ideas, different perspectives; his views are growing warped, and for every council member that greets him respectfully, another will inch away in discomfort.

 

Emily weeps for _hours_ when he tells her it's time, but the tears are tinged with weary resignation; she has known since the day of Jessamine's death that he too would one day leave her. It has only ever been a matter of counting down.

"That's just life," he says gently, and wipes away her tears with a handkerchief, as he has done so many times before. "I'm _old_ , Emily. I gave what I could of myself to you and your mother, and what's left belongs elsewhere."

She hugs him on the docks, as sailors bustle around them and his ship readies itself for the weeks-long trip back to Serkonos. "Even if 'elsewhere' left you all alone?"

"Even then."

"But it's not _fair_."

He smiles, and carefully tidies her fringe where the sea breeze has displaced it. "Be kind to your new Lord Protector, and no snacks if dinner is less than two hours away. You'll upset the servants." She laughs through her misery, and Corvo bids Emily and the echo of her mother farewell as his ship departs Dunwall's murky harbour.

 

Serkonos is many things; grape vines and fig trees, burning sun and bitter snow, woodsmoke on the breeze. Corvo finds a house on the coast near a fishing community, and a boat that he inspects before purchasing with all the wisdom endowed to him by an old sailor with weathered skin and kind blue eyes. The people there accept him; not at first, of course, but he is Serkonan by blood and birth, and he causes no trouble.

 

His shrines become driftwood, washed up scrap metal and shards of old glass. He has no costly purple-blue fabric, but such things seem increasingly unnecessary. Why should the lack make any difference? His carvings are skilful, when his hands do not ache. He abandons the restriction to bone alone, and carves wood and shell; toys for the local children, jewellery for younger men hoping to make an impression on their sweethearts.

 

Corvo carves whales, seals, squid and dolphins, and leaves them all over his shrines without a word of explanation. These ones are exquisite, his finest works, and would fetch a tidy sum were he to sell them; the thought never once crosses his mind. They are gifts.

 

He checks sporadically, and finds the carvings move without any visible reason. Perhaps it is children, or birds, or merely the wind. It doesn't really matter all that much, though he hopes they bring someone joy, or at least a measure of distraction. Eternity is a long time, when his own bones ache and begin to fail after a single life. Now his gifts are painted with a pity that seeps into every hollow and crevice, and the wooden eyes of his creatures watch with a new wisdom. He cannot comprehend, but he sympathises. Cold nights must be lonely to someone who cannot feel a hearth's warmth, or savour the comforting weight of a well-thumbed book.

 

Corvo leaves a second chair free at all times, equally placed to appreciate the flickering firelight; he never sees it occupied, but leaves a different book on its seat every night when he retires. More often than not, its bookmark will have shifted when he checks in the morning. It's a comforting arrangement, he decides. The years have not faded his memories of curious black eyes, the lilt in a monotone when Corvo did the unexpected. He likes to imagine that he is guarded in his sleep, watched with half a gaze, while the rest occupies itself with the no-doubt inadequate novels he leaves.

 

In his last weeks, when the pains in his chest grow in frequency and he finds himself restricted to the cottage, he carves his last whale with faltering hands and the ache of farewell. It's good; his best work yet, and when he lifts it in the firelight it meets his eyes with near-real warmth. There is no pity in this one.

 

The whale is placed at his bedside when he retires one last time; the chairs are put away, and the novels shelved alphabetically, to be better disposed of by anyone so inclined. The fire crackles distantly, and the wind rattles his shutters, but the sounds are not intrusive. There are no footsteps on his weathered floorboards, and the air does not cool to announce a physical presence.

"I like this one best," the Outsider says, and Corvo opens his eyes to see him cradling the carved whale. His pale fingers play over its shape, exploring contours and edges with childish wonder.

"So do I," Corvo agrees. He shifts wearily; the ache in his chest is back with a vengeance.

 

"Is it for me?"

"Only if you'd like it."

The Outsider frowns, considering. "I would," he decides. "It reminds me of how you used to be, when you were interesting."  
Corvo laughs at that, though it turns into a ragged cough part way through. "Think of me kindly, if you think of me at all? I'd appreciate it."

"A last gift, then." The Outsider strokes the whale's back with one finger, gentler by far than Corvo ever saw him. "I ought to return the favour."

"Bit late now." Corvo is tired. He has been for a while; the years have crept by like rats, gnawing at his bones and leaving him with useless fragments of his former self. They took his strength and left him brittle, but they did not leave him bitter.

"It doesn't matter," he tells the Outsider, and means every word. "I've no regrets. I could not have lived as you might have wished me to, and in the end it's for the best. Truly. It's been an honour."

 

The Outsider tilts his head and looks down on Corvo's wasted body with uncomprehending eyes. For all his years he cannot fathom this, this strange, pervasive sense of completion lending Corvo a measure of dignity at his end. He does not know joy, sorrow, loneliness or love. He will never know, and Corvo pities him, one last time. It's been a good life; he would not change it for the world, and he would not change it for the Outsider. It is done.

 

"Likewise," that dead voice says, and Corvo smiles at the untruth. "Sleep now, Corvo. For the shortest of moments you were magnificent, and in all the world there existed no other for whom I had eyes. In this you may take comfort." He touches Corvo's forehead, and a chill sparks like lightning from his fingertip, spreading through Corvo's skin, down through muscle and bone until the shock shakes his core. He is submerged, and there is no pain.

 

How heavy his eyelids have become. And why fight, when the battle is long since won? All that he has, all that he has given, all have led to this, and Corvo rests easy. He has done well; there remains nothing to regret, when all regret is passed and gone, cast into the Void like the lost, worthless thing that it is. Gone like his chains, and he is free.

 

Corvo rests.


End file.
